


Lemon Trees

by dustyfluorescent



Category: Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
Genre: Background Bassanio/Portia, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:39:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustyfluorescent/pseuds/dustyfluorescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bassanio will never be his. This is something Antonio needs to understand and make his peace with. He turns to Portia's servant Balthazar for help with the matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lemon Trees

**Author's Note:**

> ANTONIO: Commend me to your honourable wife:  
> Tell her the process of Antonio's end,  
> Say how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death;  
> And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge  
> Whether Bassanio had not once a love.  
> BASSANIO: But life itself, my wife, and all the world  
> Are not with me esteemed above thy life;  
> I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all  
> Here to this devil, to deliver you. (IV,i)

The first rays of the early morning sun graze the treetops in the garden of Portia’s house in Belmont, and young lovers retire to their rooms, all pains and misdeeds that they might have had amongst themselves well and truly forgotten, replaced as they are in their heads with something completely different. Under the lemon trees, Antonio’s weary eyes stop to rest upon Balthazar for the first time.

He is heady still with the light-headed storm of relief that comes after the fear and petrified acceptance of impending death for no just purpose, shaking with the realisation that not only is he still alive and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future, but that by some heavenly miracle he is not destitute, either; that some of his ships have returned home safe, after all. His head is an incomprehensible mess of emotion and lack thereof, and he doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry or drop to his knees to praise the Lord for sending an angel in the form of the Lady Portia to save his life. 

Strange how he doesn’t feel like he has been saved. He feels numb, he feels cold from inside out, he feels like he is being ripped apart by that very same unyielding sadness he’s battled with ever since Bassanio first came to him with the news that he wanted to court Portia - no, ever since the last time they had spent the night together and Antonio had _known_ it would be just that, the last time (and he remembers the first time he had touched his friend like one touches a lover and Bassanio had pulled away). It is a sadness Antonio can place but could never voice it out to his friends. It is more pronounced now that he’s seen them together, so in love and so right for each other and he can _see it_ , any blind man could, but he can’t find it in himself to be happy for his friend’s fortune. And it stings even more after those words Bassanio had spoken, his eyes brimming with tears, his hands shaking as he’d held him, when Antonio had thought he was going to die there in the courtroom just waiting for the Jew’s blade to cut to his chest, and he had been sure that he would die knowing Bassanio would always choose him first and love him best. 

It’s like those words were never spoken, now.

Here stands Antonio, alive and with every pound of his flesh still intact in the garden of Portia’s house in Belmont, now Bassanio’s as much as hers, quietly cursing himself for making Bassanio give away the ring because he should have known that no good comes to those who are not righteous but in their selfishness do ill by those whom they love. And equally he curses himself for giving everything he had for this man, knowing he would never get in return from him what he most desires and knowing nothing else could ever be enough. He would have let a man cut to his chest with a rusty blade he’d spit on just so he could give Bassanio everything. He would have let that happen - he still would - and he wouldn’t even have blinked. And then Bassanio had said those words, made Antonio not want to die, _not now that I know how he loves me_ , and he’d lived and the dog had run away with its tail between its legs, and Bassanio had gone back to his loving wife like he was always going to, no matter what he might ever say, and Antonio had remembered that he is not the sort of man to ever walk away with what he wants. 

He feels dirty, betrayed, stupid. He stands in that garden and watches his friends walk away from him, happy and in love, and he feels so painfully alone that it might burn him apart, and his soul is a desolate emptiness and he presses his hand against his heart just to make sure it is still there because the thrust of that rusty blade he is still expecting is all he can feel.

Antonio remembers signing that document. He remembers shaking Shylock’s sweaty hand, a twisted grin plastered on his face, already planning the execution of his glorious revenge. Antonio remembers thinking, _if I have to let this man cut off a piece of me to make Bassanio happy then so be it, and it will be done_. He doesn’t remember regretting that for a second. Now, he doesn’t know how he can live with having to see Bassanio and Portia together. So happy. Made for each other. So beautiful. It makes him sad and he can’t bear it. 

Watching his love walk away from him with his arm wrapped around the waist of another, Antonio just needs somewhere to run to, and he knows he could do anything now, and there is Balthazar. A servant boy, looking at his shoes, faint blush staining his cheeks after seeing Nerissa kiss Gratiano like she did right there in front of them. He is smiling a bit, looking a bit out of place and very confused by how they’ve just forgotten about him, like he has no idea what to do next. Both his mistress and Nerissa have retired, both with wicked smiles and their husbands in tow, implying quite brazenly that his services are not needed at this present time. 

He looks young. He’s pretty enough. Tall and lean, refined features, sharp cheekbones, hair glowing golden in the morning sun. Everything about the way he holds himself says he would not refuse Antonio’s advances, that in fact he might welcome them quite enthusiastically, and Antonio thinks, why not. Why should he have to bear his pain on his own until it fades away (like it ever would)? Has he not the right to be happy just as much as any other man?

Antonio lets his eyes linger on the boy, far longer than they would on any ordinary friend, and Balthazar looks up at him like he can feel his stare on his skin. He looks a bit startled at first, but then his face melts into an easy smile.

“Need anything, sir?” he says. 

Antonio tries to smile himself but can’t quite manage it. He clears his throat and says, “I believe I have a room somewhere in this house? Maybe you could help me find it. And maybe some wine from the kitchens, as well.”

They exchange a look that is a whole conversation in the space of a few seconds. Antonio steps closer to Balthazar, breathes in his scent. There is nobody else there but them so he kisses him gently, just to try it, and it’s okay. 

They go their separate ways but in no time at all both find themselves in Antonio’s rooms, prepared for him in advance according to Portia’s orders in the hopes that he might pull through this ordeal with all of his flesh still attached to his body. Balthazar shows up with a bottle of wine and a lewd smile on his lips that Antonio is only too happy to kiss away.

Talking can wait. They fuck like their lives depend on it. It’s harsh and violent - Antonio needs it to be like that to make sure that this sensation of his continued existence is in fact a real thing, and he’s quite certain Balthazar just likes it that way - but in the end it leaves him feeling a bit halfway there even though neither of them could possibly go any further, move at all, do anything. Balthazar winces when he turns on his side. Antonio grimaces in a way he hopes comes across as apologetic or sympathetic, something resembling human emotion.

They’re quiet for a long time. After a while, Balthazar cracks open the bottle of wine. He takes a hearty gulp before offering the bottle to Antonio. What an insolent brat, Antonio thinks, but then again, maybe he’s earned the right to be insolent tonight. Wisely, Balthazar offers Antonio the bottle and waits until he’s had some before saying anything. When he does, Antonio is not sure if he wants to hit him or hold him close forever.

“You are in love with him, aren’t you?”

Antonio can’t help it. He laughs.

“How perceptive of you,” he says.

Balthazar lifts his eyebrows and turns to look at his fingernails like he doesn’t actually care that much at all. 

“You’re never going to have him back. He loves Portia.”

Yes, definitely insolent. Antonio doesn’t have it in him to feel offended. Truth be told, he’s actually quite relieved that Balthazar is not tiptoeing around him. He doesn’t need that now. He never does, but today of all days there is a reason why he took this boy to his bed. 

“I know that.” 

“You could be happy with me.”

Antonio laughs again. 

“What?” Balthazar says. He sounds a bit offended.

“What sort of a world do you live in, boy?”

“A world where people can enjoy their lives and be happy. What’s so wrong about that?”

Antonio can’t even laugh at that anymore. What, indeed. He feels dirty again now, dirty and stupid and so painfully pathetic that it makes him want to cry. He is so alone and so full of love for a man who will now forever be too far for him to reach, and all the memories he has of him only serve to make today so much worse.

“You are so young still,” Antonio says. “When I was your age, I thought I could be happy, too.”

“I wonder if I will grow to be as bitter as you have.”

“It’s what life is like for people like us. We love with our whole being like everyone else does, but in the end we are destined for hapless love and will end up sharing our lives with none but ourselves or, if we’re lucky, with a girl who understands.” _I will never have that_ , he says.

Balthazar rolls his eyes. Antonio would slap him if he weren’t so exhausted with life. As it is, he doesn’t even think about chastising him in any way. He doesn’t even look at him.

“You sound like an old man, sir,” Balthazar says. “Surely you are not that much older than me. Not with such a pretty face.”

“I’m old enough to have had a Jew hold a knife to my chest, ready to pierce my skin and take a pound of my flesh home with him because I owed him money everybody thought I had lost forever. All this because I cannot say no to the man I love. Events like that have a tendency to reinforce a sort of cynical quality in a man. It’s aging.”

Balthazar looks at his hands. Now that he’s dropped the bravado, he looks even younger than he did before.

“I don’t understand how it is possible to love anyone that much.”

“Nor do I,” Antonio sighs, and he means it with his whole heart. He doesn’t say, _I wish I didn’t_ , because the possibility that there might ever be an Antonio who didn’t love Bassanio more than life itself is so ridiculous it has never even entered his mind.

They drink the wine and, light-headed with it, even though they are tired and sore, fuck again. Antonio hides his tears against Balthazar’s neck, and Balthazar says nothing, for which he is infinitely grateful. They fall asleep in each other’s arms halfway through a sentence, drunk and exhausted.

Antonio wakes up some hours later with the sun glinting through the window at an angle that makes it shine directly into his eyes. He groans. His mouth is dry and his temples are pounding with the beginnings of a headache. He turns around and bumps into Balthazar’s shoulder. The boy is still fast asleep, snoring lightly. He looks even younger when he’s asleep, and Antonio wonders how old he really is. 

Absently he hopes nobody has walked in on them while they were sleeping and seen them like this, but then again he can’t help but wish Bassanio knows somehow, just to make him jealous (as if he would be, that’s merely wishful thinking), to make sure he knows he is not the only man for Antonio (except that he is and always will be, but Bassanio doesn’t need to know that). 

He doesn’t know what it is, the headache or the ruthless sunlight on his weary eyes or the man sleeping in his bed - no, hardly a man, just a boy like he himself was when he’d thought, foolishly, that he and Bassanio could stay together always - but he feels twice as hopeless as he did last night, and so much worse than he did in his darkest moment, strangely serene, having lost everything because he’d risked all he had for Bassanio and he could live with that, he would die for him even now and not even blink. 

Antonio sits up in his bed in a house that belongs to his love’s lady wife, and runs his hands over his face, through his hair, lets out a shaky breath and can’t help but wish he were back in that courtroom, destitute and about to die, holding his love close as he weeps in horror and grief, himself at peace and full of love so bitter it has turned sweet. He doesn’t know how to get used to this new kind of life where he should be himself again in a world where Bassanio is married to someone else, someone he loves like Antonio loves him. Someone who saved Antonio’s life. It’s like a cruel trick destiny played on him, to make him forever thankful to this woman. For saving his life. For loving his Bassanio like he deserves to be loved.

Antonio thinks about death - lately it’s all he thinks about - and wonders if he might have had a better life had he died yesterday than what he might end up with living through every day of the rest of whatever his life will be from now on. He feels like he has passed a point in his life where he has lost himself and all meaning, passed a moment of total understanding, a moment of perfect clarity and now, after it’s gone, all that remains of him is his pain, a strangely detached but a never-yielding presence in his consciousness, and his body.

He doesn’t want a life like that. How could anyone. He laughs at himself and then chokes on his tears as they take him by surprise. He is so lonely, and the warm body next to him makes him feel lonelier still.

Antonio gets out of bed, gets dressed, and sneaks out through the door, careful not to wake Balthazar. He is still feeling the wine in his walk and definitely in his aching head but he needs to get out of this house, just for a little while, to breathe some fresh air instead of staying for one more second in the room where he drank and slept with the servant boy to forget about Bassanio. How foolish of him to think that would ever work.

He walks to the lemon trees and slumps in the grass under their shade. The sunlight is bright and beautiful and the skies are blue, and Antonio feels like he is being mocked by the entire universe. Not one cloud in the sky. 

He sits there on his own, his head a deafening buzz, trying to steer away from the thoughts that plague him and getting nowhere with it. He can’t stop thinking about Bassanio. That’s the worst thing about it, the way it always comes back to that, and it doesn’t matter what Antonio wants because his heart only ever wants Bassanio and that he has married another is apparently no kind of reason for his heart to change its course. 

Would that it were.

He doesn’t notice Balthazar’s approach until he sits down next to him under the lemon trees and leans against him like it’s something they do. In bright daylight, no less, not far from a house full of people, any of whom could be here any second.

“What are you doing?” Antonio asks, annoyed. His frustration seeps through his carefully constructed facade of calm, kind, collected. It is no matter. Balthazar has seen it already.

“Oh, nothing, sir. Just sitting under a lemon tree. What a beautiful day.”

Antonio looks at him with raised eyebrows, but Balthazar isn’t even looking his way. Without saying anything more, he slips his hand into Antonio’s and slots their fingers together, and strangely enough, Antonio finds he doesn’t actually mind. He feels a bit less alone. He closes his eyes, breathes in, and lets himself melt against Balthazar.

It’s not the end of his pain or his emptiness, not even remotely so, but it is a moment’s relief, something only the uncomplicated presence of another human being can do, and he feels a bit less like someone’s hand is squeezing the life out of his still beating heart. 

Over dinner, Antonio manages to meet one of the worried looks Bassanio keeps sending his way. He subtly shakes his head and forces a smile, and the smile he gets in return is relief, affection, too bright for the small room they’re in. Like putting the sun in a mason jar. Bassanio thinks Antonio is fine, he genuinely believes that is true. Antonio doesn’t need to fake his next smile although it does have a bitter edge to it. Bassanio has always been a blind fool. Antonio watches him smile at his wife and he thinks about all the times Bassanio looked at him like that instead. He’s not really hungry.

Balthazar is not dining with them, obviously, and strangely, Antonio finds himself missing his presence. Warm hands, eyes that, on second thought, are wise beyond their years. He is not Bassanio and never will be but he is a warm body in Antonio’s bed, a gentle touch that urges him to keep living in the hopes that things might yet turn around for him. And even though it’s the wrong person for Antonio Balthazar wants him, wants to be with him, might even love him, and that’s important.

Balthazar is not Bassanio, but Bassanio will never be his. This is something he needs to understand and make his peace with.

Antonio leaves dinner without having either spoken or eaten much at all. He goes straight to his rooms even though it’s hardly late enough for him to retire, but considering everything he has gone through in the last few days nobody judges him for wanting some rest. 

He tries to read but he can’t concentrate. He ends up watching the world go gradually dark as the sun sets behind the building. From his window, he can see the lemon trees in the garden. The moonlight is as beautiful and bright as it was the night before, bathing the garden in its pale light. 

He knows he won’t be able to sleep so he goes out. A shadow sneaks to follow him, and their eyes meet under the lemon trees. At this hour, everyone is asleep, and Antonio thinks about all the kinds of things that might have happened on nights like this. He pulls Balthazar close and holds him and wonders if he will ever be enough, if this ever will. 

They kiss like lovers under the lemon trees and for one fleeting moment, Antonio’s heart feels lighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Look at me, writing Merchant of Venice fanfiction like the huge nerd I am. I was greatly inspired by a recent performance of The Merchant of Venice that I saw. Well done kids. I'm sure I have taken some creative liberties that will make Shakespeare purists cringe, but I mean not everybody can win, not even every time.


End file.
